Yeah hate losing these, but when half our potential team and most of its stars are stuck in Europe, and Honduras can activate pretty much their top squad every cycle, it's not even remotely fair as a tournament.
Today though, Lewis should have been off after half at best. He did nothing, missed several chances, and then when Kreis finally gets around to it it's in the 90th minute or whatever it was.
And the goal we lost on was downright embarrassing. Crappy way to go.

Lol.I love the soccer media's indignation over this. Those guys didn't see this coming a mile away? Our C team youth players are never gonna waltz into the olympics. Hell our good players could easily get concacaffed in this stupid, only-one-game-matters format.

JJxvi said:

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I love the soccer media's indignation over this. You guys didn't see this coming a mile away? Our C team youth players are never gonna waltz into the olympics. Hell our good players could easily get concacaffed in this stupid, only-one-game-matters format.

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Yeah. Saw this coming based on the poor play. But it wasn't a one game matters situation.

Look guys... said:

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JJxvi said:

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I love the soccer media's indignation over this. You guys didn't see this coming a mile away? Our C team youth players are never gonna waltz into the olympics. Hell our good players could easily get concacaffed in this stupid, only-one-game-matters format.

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Yeah. Saw this coming based on the poor play. But it wasn't a one game matters situation.

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It absolutely always is. Any team with a pulse makes the semis and the semis are the only game that qualifies you.

JJxvi said:

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Look guys... said:

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JJxvi said:

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I love the soccer media's indignation over this. You guys didn't see this coming a mile away? Our C team youth players are never gonna waltz into the olympics. Hell our good players could easily get concacaffed in this stupid, only-one-game-matters format.

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Yeah. Saw this coming based on the poor play. But it wasn't a one game matters situation.

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It absolutely always is. Any team with a pulse makes the semis and the semis are the only game that qualifies you.

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Sorry. I don't see a tournament as a 1 game matters situation.

AustinScubaAg said:

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OMG attacking throw for US and they let honduras sub.

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Did they modify the substitution rules for this tournament?

Brian summed my feelings pretty well.

I dont care how great the 2018 CONCACAF U20 champions were, that's not even close to being the same team as this one. That U20 team would thrash this team the same way they thrashed all of CONCACAF.

Where is Mendez? Where is Pomykal? Where is Dest and Richards? Etc etc. You strip all the best players off of even a great team, and you're still going to be left with the scrubs, unless you think we're Brazil. This team was good enough to make the olympics, but it was not even close to being good enough to be expected to make it. Playing at U23 should have a lot of good professional players with decent reputations and this one was lacking. The names read more like a U20 team with how many I couldn't even tell you who they play for.

Quote:

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Where is Mendez? Where is Pomykal? Where is Dest and Richards?

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Mendez: Has been battling injuries just got into the starting lineup at Jong Ajax.
Pomykal: Recovering from injury
Dest: In N. Ireland playing with the National Team (Barca wouldn't have released him for Olympics)
Richards: In N. Ireland, playing with the National Team (Hoffenheim wouldn't have released him for Olympics)

The reality is that the US kinda got screwed by timing and COVID. The original roster named last year, probably stood a very good chance of qualifying, IMO.

Look guys... said:

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Quote:

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Where is Mendez? Where is Pomykal? Where is Dest and Richards?

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Mendez: Has been battling injuries just got into the starting lineup at Jong Ajax.
Pomykal: Recovering from injury
Dest: In N. Ireland playing with the National Team (Barca wouldn't have released him for Olympics)
Richards: In N. Ireland, playing with the National Team (Hoffenheim wouldn't have released him for Olympics)

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It was a rhetorical question, the point of which is to say that just because we have a great core of young players and U-20 silverware, that doesnt necessarily make the backups to those players incrementally better, in our case it left holes that we struggled to fill.

Significant number of senior team players from the friedlies could've been on the U-23 team, if their clubs released them:

Sargent - 21
Pulisic - 22
Reyna - 18
Adams - 22
McKennie - 22
Dest - 20
Robinson - 23
Musah - 18
Aaronson - 20
Weah - 21

Another reminder that the US still has a long ways to go, despite the current club success of the senior team players.

US Soccer fans are kind of like Longhorn football fans. We love to trash Concacaf even though we aren't nearly good enough to consistently boss it. US Soccer fans are the only people who thought a defensive minded C or D level U-23 squad was going to be an Olympic qualifier.

I also think there's a systemic issue with US soccer coaches. They seem to not reward or recognize fluidity. Honduras was full of guys we wouldn't give the time of day, but they seemed to have much better/confident/fluid/aggressive soccer players.

JJxvi said:

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Look guys... said:

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Quote:

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Where is Mendez? Where is Pomykal? Where is Dest and Richards?

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Mendez: Has been battling injuries just got into the starting lineup at Jong Ajax.
Pomykal: Recovering from injury
Dest: In N. Ireland playing with the National Team (Barca wouldn't have released him for Olympics)
Richards: In N. Ireland, playing with the National Team (Hoffenheim wouldn't have released him for Olympics)

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It was a rhetorical question, the point of which is to say that just because we have a great core of young players and U-20 silverware, that doesnt necessarily make the backups to those players incrementally better, in our case it left holes that we struggled to fill.

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Well obviously your point wasn't clear...my apologies.

We have the talent to qualify. The whole thing was managed poorly.

The USA could clearly put out an amazing U23 side at full strength (and I think this is likely the actual source of the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the media about how dreadful this game was). But in the real world, just the fact that Gio Reyna exists doesn't mean that whatever attacking midfielder that could actually be scraped up for this Olympic qualifying tournament must also be pretty good.

Read the article Jeff posted. It explains a ton.

There is quality there that people questioned from the beginning.

Look guys... said:

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Read the article Jeff posted. It explains a ton.

There is quality there that people questioned from the beginning.

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Yeah, my post below the linked article was my response to reading it.

JJxvi said:

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Look guys... said:

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Read the article Jeff posted. It explains a ton.

There is quality there that people questioned from the beginning.

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Yeah, my post below the linked article was my response to reading it.

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Then I don't know what you're saying.

The quality of our players is higher the Honduras.

Coaching and roster selection will get a ton of attention in the analysis of the failure to qualify, but this group was hamstrung by having almost no pre-tournament play-time together outside of the camp. It's fair to place some of that blame on COVID, but USSF needs to prioritize remedying that moving forward.

Look guys... said:

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JJxvi said:

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Look guys... said:

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Read the article Jeff posted. It explains a ton.

There is quality there that people questioned from the beginning.

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Yeah, my post below the linked article was my response to reading it.

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Then I don't know what you're saying.

The quality of our players is higher the Honduras.

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I didnt disagree with much in it. It was fine, and not full of cliff jumping which is refreshing.

My disagreement mainly is his use of past U20 teams to play up how great our "talent pool" is. If the players that made the talent high, arent in the team, then you dont have talent. Its the fallacy, I mentioned above, that if the starters are good, then squad fillers who were on the team must be pretty good too, which is how people tend to think of a "talent pool."

I agree that the quality of our players in higher than Honduras, but the players available are close enough that Honduras would win a substantial amount of the time. The media also seems to have pointedly ignored the fact that Honduras now qualifies in this tournament (and even wins it) like all the time, I guess they are just "lucky" every time.

We are 0-6 in finishing above Honduras in this tournament since 2000, and been knocked out directly by them four times (and lost in the 3rd place game in another).

But yeah, this time "we should have easily qualified, we are so good, etc. Oh my GOD how could we possibly lose to them they suck!"

JJxvi said:

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We are 0-6 in finishing above Honduras in this tournament since 2000, and been knocked out directly by them four times (and lost in the 3rd place game in another).

But yeah, this time "we should have easily qualified, we are so good, etc. Oh my GOD how could we possibly lose to them they suck!"

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I'd like you to compare the resume of the Honduras 11 versus our 11.

Then we'll see if it's talent or management.

Look guys... said:

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JJxvi said:

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We are 0-6 in finishing above Honduras in this tournament since 2000, and been knocked out directly by them four times (and lost in the 3rd place game in another).

But yeah, this time "we should have easily qualified, we are so good, etc. Oh my GOD how could we possibly lose to them they suck!"

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I'd like you to compare the resume of the Honduras 11 versus our 11.

Then we'll see if it's talent or management.

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I dont know any of their players, except that my guess, knowing what they do is that its probably mostly just all the good young players from the top handful of clubs in the Honduran Liga Nacional (Olimpia, Marathon, Montagua, etc). I also did notice that the coach on the sideline was the full Honduran national team coach, so they probably take this tournament pretty seriously.

They perform better than us in this tournament every single time, and yet it always seems like the narrative is that the US should just waltz to victory or else we are just either chokers or need to scrap the whole program.

Honduras beat us in 2008 which was the last generation (Adu, Altifdore etc) where we had great youth teams. They beat us in 2000 when the team was the absurd golden generation (Howard, Cherundolo, Beasley, Donovan, OBrien etc). Honduras is really good at Olympic qualifying.

Look guys... said:

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JJxvi said:

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We are 0-6 in finishing above Honduras in this tournament since 2000, and been knocked out directly by them four times (and lost in the 3rd place game in another).

But yeah, this time "we should have easily qualified, we are so good, etc. Oh my GOD how could we possibly lose to them they suck!"

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I'd like you to compare the resume of the Honduras 11 versus our 11.

Then we'll see if it's talent or management.

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Or the third option, we talkin' about practice.

Is this team more skilled than Honduras, player for player? Most likely. Could the games be managed better? Absolutely.

But we're taking a group of players who aren't in form and who haven't played together and thinking they can qualify just because, and as history has shown that isn't enough.

Which is what I thought Berholter and Stewart were doing.

Starting at U15, this is how we play. So every time they get together for the US it's a similar formation and philosophy.

Apparently not as indicated by Greggggg changing formations last week.

Quote:

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We can't even count on a consistent strategy in the senior team from match to match, let alone dream of having some level of consistency between youth levels.

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Disagree with that. The strategy and patterns of play, for pretty much the last year or so has been consistent:

* counter press
* play in the half spaces
* pass out of the back
* dominate possession

For the most part, Berhalter has settled into a 4-3-3 formation but the way the team plays it is fluid depending on the personnel available.

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you, but I'm not sure we've seen it long enough to really say it's happening, nor is a year long enough to make a difference right now when it's been a ****show for decades.

It is definitely worth noting that tactical consistency doesn't have to mean that we see the same formation all the time. I enjoy seeing coaches that have a consistent mentality/philosophy but alter their formations to fit the available players' strengths and/or exploit opponent weakness.

PascalsWager said:

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FIFA tries hard to make sure you and I don't care about Men's Olympic Soccer to protect their showpiece event.

I have accepted FIFA's gambit. I care more about 50km racewalking than Men's Soccer in Tokyo.

The qualifying, and the event itself is utterly irrelevant. The U23 + three is a stupid idea anyway. It allows South American countries to grab a free medal, I guess. Make under hard capped U18 and keep it as obscure as it deserves to be.

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It's dumb, for sure. It's quite telling that the UK doesn't even participate and it's their sport.

But since it exists, it's a decent opportunity for non-UEFA clubs to have an international competition that makes better headlines than normal youth events.

And in the US, where the Olympics carry a lot of clout, it's an opportunity to take advantage of average Joe's patriotism and get him to watch some soccer and maybe find out he likes it. Anything that can get soccer on TV in the US is good thing in my book.

I agree it seems a short amount of time but a typical WC cycle is only 4 years so the 1 year is about 25% of Berhalter's tenure. He basically lost a year due to Covid so he's way behind the 8 ball in his implementation of his philosophy.

For all the Klinsmann talk about transforming US into a more proactive soccer program; Berhalter is actually taking concrete steps to making it happen on the field. Remember early in his tenure where we got toasted by Mexico when the team kept trying to play out of the back? He has not wavered from that and now we're seeing signs of them being able to handle that pressure. Still haven't played enough matches against quality opponent to say we're there but it is promising.

I agree with you. Signs are positive, at least from him.

I think he's learning and growing into the position, which might be a bit of a back-handed complement, but I'd much rather have a coach who's willing to get better than one who's a know-it-all and is unwilling to adapt.

Think the question is how well good is he at making in game adjustments. That's the one area we don't have any clue about.